Judge T.S. Ellis Just Gave Mueller a Whole Lot More Time to Decide on What to Do with Paul Manafort

Paul Manafort is currently gearing up for his second trial against Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s team based on charges stemming from work he did for the Ukrainian government, and now it looks like it’ll be a while before he finds out if there will be a third.

A jury found Manafort guilty on eight counts in his bank and tax fraud trial in Virginia federal court earlier this month, but they failed to reach a decision on the other ten. That left Mueller’s office the option of retrying the former Trump campaign manager on those charges, or dismissing them. Judge T.S. Ellis gave Mueller’s team a deadline of August 29 to declare what they plan to do.

Well, that date has come and gone, but it looks like Mueller can sit back and think about things for a while since Judge Ellis just gave him an extension.

As it turns out, Manafort’s defense team wants to file a post-trial motion, but they already asked for an additional 30 days to do so. Mueller agreed to that, so Judge Ellis said in a Thursday order that first Manafort can file his motion, and after he rules on that motion, Mueller can have an additional week after that to tell the court what he wants to do with those remaining ten counts.

It looks like those who were hoping to learn what Mueller’s decision was are now probably going to have to wait until some time in October.

Mueller may very well decide he doesn’t need to expend any more resources on a case where he got a conviction on eight counts. Alternatively, he could try to push for more and get a heftier sentence.

Manafort’s money laundering trial in Washington, D.C. is currently set to start on September 24, so Mueller will likely have the opportunity to see how that’s going before he makes a final decision on the Virginia case.